DEAD MAN interview 1995

STARS JOHNNY DEPP
and GARY FARMER
(edited under fair use)

AMERICAN-BORN international artist & director Jim Jarmusch has numerous film-making efforts to his credit. DEAD MAN, THIS CERTAIN COLLABORATION with Depp as the protagonist showcases a stunning turn by Gary Farmer, guide for our hero back to the spirit world.

We all get a taxi. No charge.

===Why did you decide to make a film concerning death?

Death is life’s only certainty, and at the same time its greatest mystery. For Bill Blake, the journey of DEAD MAN represents life. For Nobody, the journey is a continuing ceremony whose purpose is to deliver Blake back to the spirit-level of the world. To him, Blake’s spirit has been misplaced and somehow returned to the physical realm. Nobody’s non-western perspective that life is an unending cycle is essential to the story of DEAD MAN.

Why William Blake, the poet?

William Blake was an English visionary poet, painter, printer and inventor. His work was revolutionary, and he was imprisoned for his ideas. I can’t honestly cite a specific, concrete reason why he entered my script, except that while I was reading books by Native Americans on Native American thought, it struck me that many of Blake’s ideas and writings sounded as though they could have come from the soul of a Native American. This is particularly true of Blake’s PROVERBS FROM HELL and AUGURIES OF INNOCENCE which, along with other fragments of Blake’s poetry, are quoted by the character Nobody throughout the film.

concerning the entrance into eternity

multi-taskin’

Jarmusch, originally from Akron, OH has a long resume of excellent indie film. Some would say, like it or not… At 59, he continues to prove his versatility every day. Here he is with composer Jozef Van Wissem, a minimalist noise, Jarmusch on guitar, oddly plodding and methodical.

A crown jewel, then, like an opus,
attempts to encapsulate someone,
but in the film

It’s Nobody’s Business

Jarmusch claims an unknown, spontaneous purpose drove him to attach the Western ideals of Blake to the Indian realm, as if they were twin sons of some different galaxies… or as if his legacy is passing on all that which emboldened him, some of which isn’t even on a conscious level. OK now I’m opining. Don’t even get me started on the genius of Michael Wincott, who will not shut up, it’s Mitchum’s final screen appearance, you get a minute and a half of John Hurt that hurts not to mention geez Billy Bob Thorton thinks it’s again his turn goddamn it, Shootin’ Gabe Byrne abruptly resolves his terrible confliction, Crispin Glover weaves a tale through the plains and our dreams, not to mention this Iggy home cookin’ fer’ gosh sakes’.

It’s a cast o’ ne’er do’wells

Alex Molina smote dead, righteously.

Burns like hellfire!

‘at is a very very sharp knife, ‘at is

=======

tobacco, stupid white man?

It’s of course standard fare

of requisite Jarmusch brutality
both in pacing and starkness.
The key lime pie of filmmakers.

Tart, not for the banal.

Jarmusch’ crown jewels are hanging.

always were:

makes a helluva pot o’ beans!

Wikiedit: In his final year at New York University film school, Jarmusch assisted renowned film noir icon Nicholas Ray, who was at that time teaching in the department. As Jarmusch has recounted, in showing his mentor his first script, Ray disapproved of its lack of action, to which Jarmusch responded after meditating on the critique by reworking the script to be even less eventful. On Jarmusch’s return with the revised script, Ray reacted favorably to his student’s dissent, citing approvingly the young student’s obstinate independence. Jarmusch was the only person Ray brought to work – as his personal assistant – on Lightning Over Water, a documentary about his dying years, a collaboration with Wim Wenders. Nicholas Ray died in the summer of 1979 after a long fight with cancer. A few days afterwards, having been encouraged by Ray and New York underground filmmaker Amos Poe and using scholarship funds given by the Louis B. Mayer Foundation to pay for his school tuition, Jarmusch started work on a film for his final project. The university, unimpressed with Jarmusch’s use of his funding as well as the project itself, promptly refused to award him a degree.

DEAD MAN soundtrack by Neil Young haunts
wrap it up Neil Young ’71 or so
…playing a ‘new song’

“this is in G for anyone who wants to blow along”, he says

jewels, dude

some are born to endless night
some are born to sweet delight

This is a wild one. I hope I can keep it together to get the point across. I heed my previous admonitions of fair play. But the story has some celebrity to it, so it has to be true to how I heard the various elements. In this regard, once again I am reporting on life being lived.

As opposed to living it.

From Wikipedia

In 1962, Howard E. Scott and Harold Brown formed a group called The Creators in Long Beach, California. Within a few years, they had added Charles Miller, Morris “B. B.” Dickerson and Lonnie Jordan to the lineup. Lee Oskar and Papa Dee Allen later joined as well. They all shared a love of diverse styles of music, which they had absorbed living in the racially-mixed Los Angeles ghettos. The Creators recorded several singles on Dore Records while working with Tjay Contrelli, a saxophonist from the band Love. In 1968, the Creators became Nightshift (named because Brown worked nights at a steel yard) and started performing with Deacon Jones, a football player and singer.

The original War was conceived by record producer Jerry Goldstein (“My Boyfriend’s Back“, “Hang on Sloopy“, “I Want Candy“) and singer Eric Burdon (ex-lead singer of the British band the Animals). In 1969, Goldstein saw musicians who would eventually become War playing at the Rag Doll in North Hollywood, backing Deacon Jones, and he was attracted to the band’s sound. Jordan claimed that the band’s goal was to spread a message of brotherhood and harmony, using instruments and voices to speak out against racism, hunger, gangs, crimes, and turf Lowriders, and promote hope and the spirit of brotherhood.

Their show at Ronnie Scott’s Club in London on September 18, 1970 is historically notable for being the final public performance of Jimi Hendrix, who joined them onstage for the last 35 minutes of Burdon & War’s 2nd set; a day later he was dead.

end Wiki

ON BALANCE I THINK LIFE is both thrust upon us and stolen from us. The human perspective on death being one of some measure less than finality to so many of so many faiths that see so little else eye-to-eye, the likelihood for statements of faith, even hare-brained, late-life or both may occur. Here, in the interest of full disclosure I preface with the caveat that if in the throes of realizing cessation of life is imminent, a man screams “Jesus Christ”

it’s probably merely an exclamation

My good friend and customer prefers his isolation of living alone. He speaks of having traveled the world in regular respite from his work, but rarely do the relationships that accompanied his travels, specifically the women, work their way into the retelling. He is more focused on his adventures and relating to me having lived a substantial if not somewhat dharmic existence in search of his truths from Tibet to Cape d’antibe. Pictured here, the cape. Tony Soprano once refered to the resort at France’ sunny southern bend as “Captain Teeg’s”. That man had class.
My friend always uses phraseology when discussing such moments in his relative youth that harkens to Bill Murray’s Phil Connors in Groundhog Day. Phil reasons that if one must live a single day over and over through eternity…

THAT was a pretty good day

My friend speaks of both outrage and helplessness at the great measure of poverty he witnessed all over the planet. He is not morally bankrupt; he compels himself to acknowledge his skimming the line ethically to try to help poor along his travels and equally comfortably dine aboard vessels and in settings that put the human race to shame in their selfish abandonment of the needy in favor of ownership of ostentatious wealth. But he considered it great fortune to be born into means, be marginally successful in his work and able to see the many places he traveled. Now in his mid-60′s, he urges me to find life to again be something that I relish, and get my ass in gear on it.

quit my belly achin’. enjoy lunch

The only recent tales of my good friend that were disturbing didn’t seem related at first. I drove it around the block, though. Although he never speaks of personal relations with women, he has worked for many head of household women with whom he maintains years of working and social interaction. Occasionally, as happens these days, a long-time customer of his will be offended at my friend defending his somewhat liberal politics. Recently he lost touch with a woman for whom he has greatly enjoyed working. She has been so pleased with his work over the years, but when he stood up to her statements of belief, she really laid a number on him. He hadn’t had contact with her since the incident in mid-summer.

It gets worse. In the past few days, he was telling me of socializing with a mutual friend of the woman who is so very incensed at him. This other woman, another customer of my friend and highly successful in world banking, had come to him very excited to get a project started and found my friend had been laid up most of the past month with a work injury, a pinched nerve and related distress, barely leaving his boat and using some heavy medications, a true indication of his distress. He is a tough guy, self-sustaining and with a strong will and even temperament. The use of medications and people Rolffin His Body Up in physical therapy are sure signs he endured until sensibly succumbing to treatment options. She was saddened not to be able to book my buddy’s time immediately, but they are friends going way back, as I stated, so like any good relation she was more concerned about his ongoing recovery than her finish carpentry. They planned a dinner, but first she had already scheduled a lunch with their mutual friend.

When they had dinner later, his friend was just delightful. They are fans of exotic food and gastronomically quite daring; the hours at the restaurant flew by and they caught up on each other. He really is a conversationalist at heart, my friend, as I witness regularly. His friend was delighted to hear him agree to calendar the work when he returns. They had a memorable evening. He told me later of the chat his woman friend broached as they were walking to the car.

She simply isn’t a gossip, so it began hesitantly, but she asked him of what had happened to their mutual friend, the woman so upset at my friend. The friend asked this as they walked to the car, my friend hobbling as he does. He told me he asked her, what did she mean? was something wrong with their mutual friend? As he is also not one to gossip, it was all he could do to describe the incident without couching it in some bias of favorable fashion, so being who he is, he simply told her the woman had been insufferable regarding political differences.

His friend replied that the woman had ALWAYS been insufferable about politics.

Her concerns had been somewhat allayed, she related to him, by her observation of his physical condition, range of motion and ability to be ambulatory, i.e. accompanying her to dinner. Her worrisome question was rooted in when he had told her on the phone of his injury, she later had mentioned it to their mutual friend of his misfortune at suffering the injury. She related their friend’s eyes brightened and that she blurted suddenly that she had prayed fervently since their strenuous disagreement that my friend suffer an injury. And that she prevailed, to her mind, in that Her God had answered her prayer and proven my friend a heathen.

My buddy takes such things in stride. He won’t succumb, I don’t think, to allowing the taint of such hatreds, once again calling upon a God for one’s own righteous indignation, to let him lose sight of his larger purpose. Nor discount that his good friend with whom he had enjoyed such succulent feast as is life was untainted as well, once assured of my friend’s being in the midst of recovery and having expressed alarm and concern for their mutual friend’s lost faith.

cuz on balance, it had been a pretty good day

The final destination none of us know. So it is smart to enjoy and celebrate each day. It is difficult to see people turned away from healthy relations; even more perplexing is the idea one would use the supposed belief in the power and might and sheer love of a higher being they worship… to pray for a former friend’s injury. Worse, to state it openly to a mutual friend. But one never knows. One certainly can’t tell by appearances.

So I was ready, then. One more story for (and of) the road. My friend spoke of the sixties. He believes it was the summer of 1968, as timelines of those events remain etched in most Americans minds. It’s kinda where the wheels came off this whole thing.

In his final story he was traveling with friends down the California coast, down Big Sur and the like, our most Westernmost contiguous state’s craggy, merciless coast between San Fran’ and L.A. It was summer and the coastal hippie towns were brimming with happy people. At some towns, whole buses of hippies would pull up, share in the bountiful communities or ad hoc celebrations and parties, then move on in a few hours. Traveling in this fashion, the youth of that era found a sense of connectiveness with others of all disparate backgrounds and walks of life. They yearned for these new experiences.

A bus pulled up. It was much like the other buses; out poured the sway of beautiful young women. Much like the rest, they moved among the crowd. My friend watched and exchanged pleasantries. The girls were different from the typical hippie free spirits he had encountered in his time on the road. They seemed abrupt, and stealth in their pocketing of food beyond what they might immediately eat. They didn’t interact and mingle with the people already there, at least at first. After a while, upon moving closer, my friend was introduced to some of them by the tallish man, who called himself Tex.

He relates the story in this fashion, but was fairly clueless at the time. A year or so later, a friend who had been traveling with him and witnessed the afternoon sent him press clippings. He wasn’t as surprised as one might think. He had seen the group move in, take what they wanted, add some new travelers to their troupe, and off they had gone. Before his story ended, I came to understand about the ebb and flow of life, that ya’ gotta take the good days and enjoy them to their fullest. Ya’ gotta take with a grain of salt the bad days, the bad ways, the bad people for want of another term, who might wish or even invoke or inflict pain and suffering into your one and only measly life. I came to understand the nature of evil a little better. I yearn to exorcise this sad mentality from my beliefs and actions.

“This is Susie,” Tex began.

“The little one is Squeaky.”

As Tex spoke, down the steps of the old school bus came a small man, dirty despite the pastiche of the setting, the multi-colored Earth Bus and the pristine, even bucolic surroundings at the edge of the expansive sea.

Charles Manson.

they can’t all be good ones

FRIDAY 1/18/75

As a young man I guess I was shy. Or I was raised with some mixture of reverence and fear toward the fairer sex (gender). Case in point my latter-day political correctness. But I went to the local cinema, probably on the day and date in question. There, with another together in the darkness, I witnessed Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.” No, not with the girl of my dreams forever. But I was on a date. It was a big deal. But not with the girl of my dreams forever. That’s only in the movies.

Amid glowering film we sit seeing
each others’ glowing souls ever eminent
yes Young Frankensteins’ horror of being
as we swerve over absinthe remnant

I’d written this a long time ago. I have always struggled to allude to some connection to the next morning NOTRE DAME BESTING UCLA, ending the Bruins 88-game four-season dominance, and the sporting events connection in my mind with the movie, and the character Frahhnkenschteein portrayed by Gene Wilder. He was building the perfect beast; Teri Garr as merely his adjunct. She gave him power by not just her running things, but letting him think he was, errrr, competent. Somehow it is related in my brain that I was unable to view the game at my father’s, ahem, request. At 15, I recall specifically that I was not able to see the game on television due to my responsibilities with certain chores. Something like weeding the back lawn or tossing shovels of soil through a screen.

As opposed to being with the girl of my dreams, I daydreamed.

Jane tramped a bit herself, Oui?

Robert Redford, however took a broad turn as a good looking leading man, tramping his way through big deal films in those halcyon days; seen here is Barefoot in the Park, from Neil Simon’s comedy. On stage, it was a smash hit. When they made the film, Jane Fonda provided his celluoid equal.

During it’s Broadway buster-blocking?

Introducing the inimitable Elizabeth Ashley.

Fonda was and is enigmatic

Redford advanced film itself; both sustained interesting careers of longevity in the spotlight.

I believe Ms Ashley has a story or two as well.

Not in a spotlight per se.
——-

Though The Sting was their eventual big payout,

Redford was first the now singularly ubiquitous Sundance to Paul Newman’s Butch Cassidy, and we do look to that film as anointing the man. However, the film’s sole Academy nod went to William Goldman winning ‘scripting for the screen entirely new material,’ quite a feat. Directed by George Roy Hill, known today as a classic, the film captures hearts still. Redford became founder of the Sundance, Utah film extravaganza blah blah. An icon.

wiki.edit.The title roles were originally cast with Newman and Steve McQueen, but the latter left after a dispute over billing. The role of Sundance was then offered to Jack Lemmon. Lemmon, however, turned down the role; he did not like riding horses! Eventually, the role of Sundance went to the lesser-known Redford. Initially Newman was to play Sundance with Redford cast as Cassidy. Fox producers did not want Redford, but director George Roy Hill insisted.

Redford later said this film irreversibly changed his career.

Butch Cassidy’s outlaw gang was actually called “The Wild Bunch”; this was changed, in the film, to “The Hole-In-The-Wall Gang” speculated to avoid confusion with Sam Peckinpah’s recently released film The Wild Bunch.
=======

Bartender says, “Once I got your drink, you’re mine for life”

Abe Greenberg’s partners get paid!

MY FAVORITE REDFORD YARN, however, is a just a simple little caper flick with a hopeful scheme and a band of kindred. Peter Yates didn’t make a ton of films but he nailed this one, to my estimation. They’re a merry band indeed, and they are all cogs in this wheel they’ve spun and frankly, they can’t get off. Redford is Dortmunder, newly released and glad to be out. From the moment his brother-in-law Kelp nearly runs him down in earnestness, his life is complicated. Again. Check Moses Gunn as Dr Amusa, ubiquitous crooked ambassador, bemoaning their bumbling ways, having stolen and then lost the precious Mombadian (sic) birthright, now tasked once more to retrieve the massive gem.
====

“I’ve heard,” he protests,
“of the habitual criminal.
But never the habitual crime.”

Ron Liebman says “they pay us 150/wk until we do the job? Why ever do the job?

Paul Sand provides explosives. Some he learned in Berkeley.

Ron Leibman can shave ten minutes crosstown. Lives for his Ma. Charlotte Rae, of course. They listen to records of the ‘Sounds of the Indianapolis 500′ and such. What a life!

George Segal as Kelp has mad skills, trust him.

He just wants to help Dortmunder.

It’s a simple gem heist.

What could happen?

THE HOT ROCK
written by………….. William Goldman

Do not inquire at banana stand. Ask for Miasmo.

BONUS ROUND the sister is TOPO SWOPE,
sometime actress and daughter of Dorothy McGuire,
absolutely stunning in an early 70′s braless, hiphuggers way…

When I first began this blog, my intent apart from attempting to create a timeline of my life was to provide insight into my justifications and rationale for the various miscreations in my life. Share my hopes and dreams. My most difficult task along the way, writing-wise, has been to tread the line refraining from divulging personal sh*t in a fashion that is self-serving. I must endeavor to avoid the creation of a battlefield, from which there would be no return. Instead, find within myself the strength to see the light in life. Hope and urge others to find their way. I am never happier than when I am able to bridge worlds of seeming discord into a mix. But Zelig one cannot be, for like, forever.

Bob Dylan had a whimsy as a young man. He wanted to wear a grin he could parade for all, such was his joy to wrangle and wrestle a good story. He obviously cared enough to find his inner poet to dissect for lovers such lament of loves’ sad ebb and flow, be bold enough to spout open dissatisfaction with social constructs oppressing so many in the interests of so few, and also to have a good time.

First of all, Rosemary hung for it. It really doesn’t matter. No one gets away. No one wins. To scoundrels hoping for sad disarray to take others over? I believe it is Sun Tzu, or maybe Confucius who said something about ashes in the mouths of those swallowed in their own hatreds. Geez, my mixed metaphors aside, it must every moment be a horror flick to seethe with hatred. I would imagine it a bummer. I deal only in rationale. My sublimated sadnesses are not rageful; I tend to lance the isolated pocket and extract. Forceps, anvils and hammers, the whole schmeer. The occasional opportunity to illustrate, reiterate even, for those who don’t yet know me, or are seeming hard of hearing

Everybody is making love
Or else expecting rain

I have come to certain conclusions. We are engaged in a class struggle, and a struggle for equality and justice in our embattlement with the corporations with whom we share such horrid sociological implication in the future of mankind, in an all-out war for the survival of our species, literally of this ecosphere, directly with the individuals owning and operating these corporations.

it takes one to know one, she smiles

Bob wouldn’t make that one a happy song.

but he was happy, mostly. One would think.

Now the moon is almost hidden
The stars are beginning to hide
The fortune-telling lady
Has even taken all her things inside

I’VE BEEN THROUGH the ringer. When I was young, my wonder at the ferris wheel was self-serving. Would the ride operator see my girl and me, so obliviously happy together? and would he know instinctively that we should be the ones?

it’s a glorious ride

he said my friend you’re in a dream
and things are never what they seem

No. Things are never what they seem.

Steven Wright once remarked he had a dream where he was born eight months premature. Just sayin’. I don’t think that sounds reasonable. In fact, I don’t think he was being a reasonable man, but stranger thangs’ have happened. Just sayin’.

strike three called!

Hey I’ve sat on 222 posts long enough. I think I need an editor. Determination in my dissolution proceeding kinda made me avoid what is known as talkin’ trash. I am born again in the faith and devotion to my loving companion and hers in me. I always shut up when The Illustrious Lovely throws shade. Look it up, Bartlett.

As is typically the case, when my words become unbearable for people, I think they stop listening. I am ill. I have some semblance of cognition but had lost my willful desire to proceed in life. It is a by-product of intractability. Intractability in my obviously failed marriage, in my career, in the failure I have been in protecting precious Abigail. But when those close to you turn away rather than reach out it’s because they don’t wanna hear what is said. Taking the time to acknowledge this disconnect the disabled feel when the stresses of life long endured have clearly boiled over is the only dignified way for those who care about someone in trouble emotionally to address mental disability. Otherwise, it’s like Scorcese where she says

shut up, you’re always talking

When decorum presented its’ ugly head, I think my family should have simply voice-voted me off The Island, not witnessed my brother’s debacle and scattered truth to the wind. My brother was heeded, held harmless and sat quietly while I murdered all crows.

My state of anxiety has for many months precipitated such recurring and agitated behaviors as to frighten people for my well-being. To me, I just start talking and have a lot to say. Is not the critical element of personal ownership of my own body the right to speak freely? Is not the appropriate cultural and legal responsibility to any gathering or group, private or public, the right to request I absent myself from the social setting, willingly or unwillingly, but under RCW not to proceed to physically lay hands upon me in a protracted assault?

I say that every time simply because I’m a reasonable man

My family’s position, apparently, is that my verbosity many times in family gatherings, deemed belligerence by most all, would not have needed more than voice-vote. I’m gone, it’s expected. I did indeed for some time frighten, concern and eventually anger all parties, in solely my family’s position, to warrant acts of the magnitude Ken engaged in upon my person. All but my mother are held harmless by rule of law, filter it in the fashion they choose: except of course the children. It is true what I wrote. Then and just now. Olivia was alone at the trunk; to me, this was my death.

I’ve many times over the years heard acquaintances describe their loss of family relations. To hear someone casually trail off a sentence abruptly while describing such horror minimizes the awful impact of the words, but it was never lost on me what they were discussing. I always thought to myself, if you have no relationship to those to whom you were born, if you must now make sense of the world and your singular place in it without the people, the only people, to whom you attach yourself, who brought you into this world

How exactly do you go on living? Why?

Why have you forsaken me?

This precusor to destruction of any manageable relationship with any of these people, save my mother, is no less a parallel to and probably holds some validity as a factor, a teetering or tipping point causally, in the manner of end game of Petitioner/Matron in my now-embattled former marriage. I detested the woman to whom I was married; her misery subjected me to a near-constant state of belligerence directed at me as I attempted to recover from the closing of my seven year retail store venture and morph my salvage inventory.

back into the music little ditty from The Smashing Pumpkins
eleven million views can’t be wrong.

No apologies ever need be made
I know you better than you fake it to see
——-

Harry Nilsson lived and played hard. I don’t think he was a tortured soul; he could lay it out there, though. He felt it. He had an eloquence in his manner of delivery. And was so damn tall. He wistfully pulled at your heartstrings; witness his penning of the mega-Three Dog Night single “One”. The man appealed to the sense of whimsy in fans of all ages, and wrote in several genre. Nilsson suffered a heart attack Valentine’s Day 1993, and spent that year putting together an LP anthology eventually released, but after his passing January 15, 1994.

The time has come the Walrus said,
to call your friends by name.

On May 25, 2012 documents were executed at Lyman, WA that effectively gifted me, for no remuneration, a fifty-year trove of collectible adult magazines, books, 8mm and its’ Super 8 cousin and multiple thousands of hours of rare, out-of-print adult content collected diligently for decades.

It’s worth something.
I say that every time.
Cuz’ I’m a reasonable man.

Dorothy Priscilla (“Patsy”) Bullitt Collins was a Seattle philanthropist. Born in Seattle on September 24, 1920 to the wealthy A. Scott Bullitt and Dorothy Bullitt, she died June 24, 2003.

Yup. That’s it from here.

I NEVER UNDERSTOOD this whole celebrity deaths come in 3′s thing. It takes a presumption to deem someone a celebrity to begin with; some people are legend in their innovation. Others it is thrust upon for unknown serendipity. As a kid, experience taught me there are better things to be known as than what’s called infamous. Celebrity? cause celebre maybe. parlez vous?

The Fate of another Patsy Collins

He was a bodyguard and roadie for Deep Purple. He died December 4, 1975 in Jakarta, Indonesia. He reportedly fell down six floors of an elevator shaft after an argument with local promoters because of money owed the band. Deep Purple blogger I.S. Harahap tells us of the literal nightmare the man endured.

Chaville porte de Mare Adam arche

SOME THINGS should die; but not innocents. Besides, it is more mutual surrender once aware of dysfunction, in relations personal OR professional. A coming to the table, admittance even, of shortcomings must be made. Shortcomings of spirit, of commitment and effort, followed by honesty with others of those truths evidenced empirically. At a minimum.

I’m a patsy in this whole thing, people.

——-

The Death of Amy Winehouse

ORIGINAL POST 7/23/11
=======
In other news across the globe, from LONDON, early morning reports of a celebrity death. Some people live comparatively short lives despite (or due to) what would seem to those unknowing, great successes.

Who knew there were so many languid,
tortured ways to say “black…”

You sang, “I died a hundred times.”

No, once.

Maybe it’s a case of hardness of heart
But I’m down for the count
And there’s got to be someway
To clear out whatever keeps us apart